SongsTube David Bowie

About "Young Americans"

Young Americans is the ninth studio album by the English musician David Bowie, released on 7 March 1975 through RCA Records. A departure from the glam rock style of previous albums, the album showcased Bowie's interest in soul and R&B. Commentators have described the record as blue-eyed soul; Bowie himself labelled the album's sound "plastic soul".

Initial recording sessions took place following the first leg of the Diamond Dogs Tour in August 1974 at Sigma Sound Studios in Philadelphia with producer Tony Visconti and a variety of musicians, including guitarist Carlos Alomar, who would become one of Bowie's most frequent collaborators. Backing vocalists included Ava Cherry, Robin Clark and then-unknown singer Luther Vandross. The tour continued, with the setlist and design changed due to the influence of the new material recorded.

Sessions continued at the Record Plant in New York City at the tour's end. Bowie's friendship with former Beatle John Lennon yielded "Fame" and a cover of Lennon's Beatles song "Across the Universe" during a January 1975 session at Electric Lady Studios, produced by Harry Maslin. The sessions produced several outtakes and the record itself went through numerous working titles. The cover artwork is a back-lit photograph of Bowie taken by Eric Stephen Jacobs.

Young Americans was very successful in the US, reaching the top 10 on the Billboard Top LPs & Tape chart, with the single "Fame" becoming Bowie's first number one hit. It has received mixed critical reviews both on release and in later decades; Bowie himself had mixed feelings about the album. His biographers consider it one of his most influential records, noting him as among the first white musicians of the era to overtly engage with black musical styles. The album has been reissued multiple times and was remastered in 2016 as part of the Who Can I Be Now? (1974–1976) box set.